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Tesla Could Be Hogging Batteries and Causing a Global Shortage, Says Report (gizmodo.com)
According to a report from the Korea news outlet ETNews, Tesla's solution to fixing a manufacturing bottleneck responsible for a $619 million loss last quarter could be causing a global battery shortage. Panasonic reportedly gave most of its cache of batteries in Japan to Tesla so that the automaker and Gigafactory 1 energy-storage company could keep up with its ambitious production schedule. Gizmodo reports: In early October, Tesla struggled with a "production bottleneck," but by the end of the month, Panasonic stated it would increase battery output at the Gigafactory, now that it understood the issues that led to the bottleneck and could automate some of the processes that had been done by hand. But this likely did not help Tesla fix any immediate shortage issues. ETNews claims that Panasonic is coping with the shortage by shipping batteries in from Japan. And many Japanese companies in need of cylinder batteries have turned to other suppliers like LG, Murata, and Samsung -- but those companies have not been able to meet the demands. Reportedly, companies that had contracts before 2017 aren't affected by the shortage, but several other manufacturers have not been able to place orders for batteries, and won't be able to order more batteries until the middle of next year.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programme...
"Tempers are wearing thin. Let's just hope some robot doesn't kill everybody." --Bender
Fuck everyone else. It's just good business.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
They use giant sailboats to transport them from Japan to Seattle WA, and then they are carried by barrens of mules down to Fremont, CA
they are carried by barrens of mules down to Fremont, CA
Tesla employees deserve more respect than that!
Looks more like production problems on Tesla's side, since they already had them when they were tinkering together the Model 3 launch batch. This was only a few hundred cars, so it cannot be due to huge demand. Even now it is extremely unlikely that Tesla ist anywhere near the output that they had planned for December, so if the Gigafactory should easily be able to deliver enough cells if it was running at full capacity.
Signature deleted by lameness filter.
Let's see: company (Tesla) has more need for materials furnished by a partner company(Panasonic), so orders more and partner company supplies the extra materials. Other companies WITHOUT existing supply contracts whine about being unable to buy batteries from partner company. Isn't this at some level how basic capitalism works? It's not like there aren't other battery suppliers and - yes! - demand is skyrocketing. Welcome to the real world.
As Electrec notes, it's almost impossible that this report is correct. Model 3 uses 2170 cells, not the standard 18650s, while Model X and Model S have always used imported cells, so nothing has changed there.
Pinkypants -- my favorite!
You can sell significant numbers of a product, beyond your wildest dreams, and still be losing money.
Boeing has sold 1287 of its 787 Dreamliner series aircraft, has delivered 625 and was still losing money overall (as in deferred program debt was still rising) until earlier this year (when they managed a slight reduction). Boeing isn't forecast to make any actual profit on its current order book.
In the commercial aviation world, 1000 sales of a large aircraft is a huge success, usually (see 777, 747, 767, A330). But then, usually, these programs have their production and R&D debt paid off in the first few hundred airframes....
Tesla is in the same boat - massive (relatively) up front costs, coupled with significant production issues which means debt is still rising rather than being recouped.
They will get there, but they aren't there yet.
1970's:
Kid: Daddy, my new radio-controlled car won't run!
Daddy: Batteries not included? What the hell is this?
Kid: Daddy, you shouldn't swear.
2017:
Kid: Batteries not available? What the hell is this?
Kid's kid: Seriously, what the fuck?
Kid: Where'd you learn that kind of language?
Kid's kid: Are you fucking serious?
What's the environmental impact of this battery manufacturing?
Compared to extracting oil from the Alberta tar sands, the impact is modest. Lithium is extracted from salt flats and underground brine, which are not ecological hotspots. Cobalt is mostly a byproduct of open pit copper and nickel mining, and little mining is done specifically to extract cobalt.
If they're being shipped from Japan to the US, then they'll have a higher carbon footprint due to being shipped across an ocean than batteries manufactured locally, no?
Not really. Ocean transport is very efficient, and adds little to the carbon footprint of these vehicles.
Are vehicles that use batteries like this truly more environmentally friendly
Yes, by a big margin.
Wait, so the claim is that Tesla could be CAUSING a shortage?
How are they causing a shortage? By buying up all the batteries they can get.
Why are they buying up batteries? To eliminate their manufacturing problems.
What were the manufacturing problems they were having? They couldn't get enough batteries.
Oh yeah, that makes total sense. It's not a battery shortage causing Tesla to buy up batteries....it's Tesla buying up batteries that is causing a shortage.
But the truth wouldn't generate a click bait headline
Journalists use language like that when they don't have any facts to back it up.
The facts are Tesla no longer use the same sized batteries as other products, like laptops do, in their new models.
I don't see how draining stockpiles of 18650 cells would help them manufacture their cars that require 2170 cells.
A more likely story is that Panasonic has halted production of 18650 cells to manufacture 2170 cells instead, while keeping enough capacity to honor existing customer contracts.
The environmental impact of shipping a tonne of batteries from east Asia is the same as the impact of shipping a tonne of steel from east Asia.
And for the record: Model 3 SR is pretty much the same weight as the similar-sized, similar-accelerating BMW 330i. Model 3 LR isn't much heavier (and is faster).
Lastly: life cycle assessments aren't conducted by guesswork and speculation. They're done in peer reviewed studies. For example.
Pinkypants -- my favorite!
No difference?
If the raw materials are being mined in China, it;s not really going to make much difference if they're manufactured in Japan or USA, at the end of the day there is still a ship going across the Pacific Ocean.
It could even have less impact, if the end product is lighter and/or smaller than the raw materials.
Taking all the batteries and still slipping on production schedule actually aligns with painting Tesla a flop. That would be the limiting factor, and even with the world's supply of batteries they cannot produce what they've taken the cash to produce.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Ocean shipping is dirty as hell!
Container ships burn high sulfur bunker fuel, which produces lots and lots of sulfates, which are nasty pollutants ... ON LAND. But at sea, the sulfates settle onto the surface of the sea, where they have a negligible effect since the ocean already contains quadrillions of tons of sulfur.
Sulfur is a pollutant in the same way that salt is a pollutant: It depends on where you put it.
The Daily Mail caring about the environment?
They don't care. The whole point of the article is to promote environmental nihilism and apathy. If 16 ships pollute more than a billion cars, and wind turbines kill birds, and bicyclists run over endangered insects, then clearly everything is equally bad and nothing matters and readers can continue to drive their SUVs guilt free.
Cobalt is mostly a byproduct of open pit copper and nickel mining, and little mining is done specifically to extract cobalt.
While true, there is more to the story. 15% of US cobalt production is already from recycling. Also there is the Idaho Cobalt Project (ICP) that already has permits for a primary-source cobalt mine in Idaho, which should go online imminently. It is owned by a Canadian mining company. They're expecting 1500 tons/yr for 12.5 years.
The most important thing though is that cobalt is totally recoverable, in the future most of it will come from recycling.
That 25% margin is just what Tesla claims. It takes no great insight to arrive at.
Tesla computes gross margin differently than other auto makers. I'm not saying one is more correct than the others, but Tesla would barely squeak by on what to others would be a comfortable margin.
a,e,i,o,u and sometimes w and y (at be if of up cwm by)
So, I'm reading all these Slashdot comments, and just am amazed at one thing that wasn't even close to true even ten years ago.
Not only do Republicans appear to hate the environment, they clearly hate basic capitalism too.
Republicans have always, repeat always been against free market capitalism. They say they want small government, and for it to stay out of businesses' affairs, and then they pass assloads of laws designed specifically to give the advantage to one business or another. When they say they are against the Democrats interfering in the way businesses are operated, they mean that it's affecting their ability to do the same, not that they are opposed to it.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"